Coping, Patience, and Reward

Micah could cope with random guys spending the night. It wasn’t like he liked it, but it wasn’t like his roommate wanted to date him so he didn’t really have much choice (it was only a small comfort that Trev didn’t seem to want to date, period. He just wanted to fuck).

What he couldn’t cope with was coming home to Trev and some Asian guy making out on the sofa. Trev didn’t even seem fazed by the interruption, he just smiled brightly–a little too brightly, actually–and said, “Micah! Shen brought us some drugs.”

Shen was one of what Micah considered the regulars–guys who showed up often enough that Micah knew their name. He was wont to call them friends, because as far as he was concerned one didn’t fuck one’s friends, but it was cool. He forced himself to smile, because if he recalled correctly Shen was an MIT student and probably cooked up his own drugs. He could use a good high if he was going to get the image of the way Trev’s bare chest arched into Shen’s hand before Trev had looked up, out of his head.

After untangling himself from Trev, Shen was happy to go over to his backpack and pull out a bottle of pills. They had a little winged stamp on them, which was the stamp that Shen and his friends had put in together so they could get a pill press with a design on it. Or something–Micah hadn’t really paid much attention to the details because he’d been too busy staring at the way Trev was eating an ice cream cone at the time.

He sniffed the pill experimentally, but it didn’t smell like anything. Shen smiled, and for a moment Micah thought that maybe he saw what Trev did. That Shen was beautiful, even when his pupils were so wide that there was only the barest of brown iris showing all the way ’round his eyes. “Thanks,” he said and offered a smile.

Shen kissed him. Just like that, leaned in and put his hand on Micah’s shoulder and kissed him.

Micah kissed back, not meaning to but it was so easy, so natural to just–fall into his old habits again. Fuck anyone who looked at him twice.

No. He wasn’t doing this. He broke the kiss, reaching up to pet Shen’s cheek. “Sorry, I don’t do casual fucks,” he said, offering an apology smile. “And I don’t think you’re looking to date me.”

“Mmmm,” Shen hummed, and he pressed one more kiss–chaste, now–to Micah’s lips before scampering back over to the couch to crawl on top of Trev. “Enjoy!”

Micah had a feeling he’d enjoy it more with someone else, but he didn’t do casual fucks and Trev didn’t do relationships so there was just no way it would work. “I will. You’ll adjourn to the bedroom before you get down and dirty, right?”

Trev waved at Micah, probably as close to a yes as he was going to get because Shen was kissing him again.

He very pointedly did not sigh when he closed the bedroom door behind himself.

⇆

Patience was one of Micah’s virtues. Probably the only one, actually, but that didn’t matter.

All that mattered was that he was able to spend the next year pining away without too much angst over the whole thing. Either Trev would grow out of the fuck-everyone thing and settle down a little, or he wouldn’t. It was fairly simple.

“Don’t you ever want to just, you know, settle down?” he asked Trev one day, while they were both studying in silence at the kitchen table, books spread out.

Trev didn’t make any move to answer, just continued writing like Micah hadn’t even asked. But as soon as Micah was drawing in his breath to ask again, he looked up abruptly. Shining blue eyes, like a lance through Micah’s heart. “Why?”

“Because sooner or later you’re going to run out of one night stands?” It stood to reason, and was why Micah had stopped during his senior year in high school, when he’d realized there were fewer people in school who hadn’t fucked him than who had. But he’d lived in a small town, then, not hustling, bustling Boston with its endless supply of college and university freshman.

“I seriously doubt that,” Trev said, and rolled his eyes. “I mean, I am good, but I think the number of men willing to fuck me vastly outnumbers the number I’ve slept with already. And I sleep with plenty of people more than once, too,” he added, a bit defensively.

Micah sighed internally. “Forget I said anything.”

“Why? You want me to settle down with you?” Trev asked, his eyes going bright with the new idea.

Meanwhile the only thought in Micah’s head was oh fuck, oh fuck, oh fuck because his life could be a living hell if Trev figured things out. The only thing that had stopped it from happening so far was the fact that between school and partying, Trev didn’t spend very long at home and was normally preoccupied when he did. Micah put on his best sarcastic voice and said, “Yes, Trev. I’ve lived with you for a year and a half now, and I’ve spent the entire time pining away, watching you fuck everyone but me.” He even added an eye roll.

Thankfully, Trev laughed. “Yeah, you’d be pretty stupid to like me,” he agreed, and turned back to his homework.

And wouldn’t it just figure, Micah felt absurdly pleased with himself because now as he worked, there was a slight smile tugging at Trev’s lips.

Pretty stupid, indeed.

illustrated by beili

⇆

Trev came home messed up a lot. Normally he had people with him, but when he didn’t he always went in his room.

If Micah listened outside the door (which he’d only done twice, just to make sure Trev wasn’t going to choke on his own vomit or something) he’d hear porn playing from Trev’s computer and the steady, wet sound of Trev jacking off. It was unbelievably hot, and it always sent Micah to his own room, hiding under the covers and jacking himself off to completion with short, desperate motions.

One night he didn’t. One night he stumbled in three sheets to the wind, making it down the stairs into their basement apartment still standing only by virtue of the hand rail.

And he walked over to the couch where Micah was sitting and sat down and just kind of–fell over. Slid over. Leaned to the side unti his short red hair was brushing Micah’s leg and his face was buried in the couch.

“Do you think I’m oblivious, Micah?” he asked, long enough later that Micah had begun to wonder if Trev had fallen asleep.

Duh, Micah thought. “I think you’re preoccupied.”

“Oh,” Trev said, like he hadn’t considered the idea until just now and wasn’t entirely sure he liked it. “Well. Goodnight.”

And he pushed himself up and walked, with much leaning on the wall, to his room.

The next morning Micah was already up and in the middle of eating breakfast when Trev wandered out of his room. Naked. Wandered out of his room naked.

Like it was no big thing. Like–like somethingsomethingsomething Micah muttered under his breath and shoveled a too-large bite of cereal into his mouth as Trev approached him. With something like a smile on his lips, and his eyes bright with–brightness.

“I found out something last night,” Trev said, and he sat down next to Micah.

Micah didn’t twitch. He didn’t look, either, firmly fixing his gaze on the nearly empty bowl of cereal. His mouth was too full to speak, thank goodness. “Mmm?”

“It was Shen who told me, actually, but he didn’t realize he’d told me until it was too late and then–well, he said I was oblivious if I hadn’t noticed it by now.”

“M-nn-hm?” Really? Micah thought. Really? Like this?

“Mmhmmm,” Trev hummed, and leaned his head on Micah’s shoulder.

Nothing to freak out about, of course. Trev did this sometimes when he was high or drunk-got touchy feely. Sometimes. When he came in high and no one was there. Not usually the morning after, but that was nothing to worry about, was it? Of course not. No cause for concern. Maybe if he told himself that enough, he’d believe it.

Trev didn’t move. “So I was wondering, how stupid are you?”

illustrated by beili

Oh god. He swallowed the cereal. “Um?”

“You’d be pretty stupid to like me, after all. Knowing how I am.” The look in Trev’s eyes said it all: he knew. He knew. And he liked it, like some sort of tiger ready to just–pounce.

The way his lips shaped the last two words made Micah’s cock stir. Traitor, he thought. “You’re not going to date me?”

“What if I said I would?” Trev asked, still sounding so damnably reasonable. “Would you fuck me then?”

Yes. If he was going to be honest with himself, he’d fuck Trev on the barest promise of a second time, much less the idea of dating, which made his heart beat faster. “Maybe.”

“You’d need my word on it, wouldn’t you?” Trev lifted his head, but only to press a kiss to Micah’s neck, and that was a shiver that went down his spine but whatever not paying attention notpayingattention. “So I give it: I’ll go out on at least one date with you, if you fuck me.”

Micah’s hands were strangely steady as he set down the bowl, but they shook as soon as he reached for Trev, cupping one hand behind his neck and the other on his cheek. “I–okay. Okay, I’ll do it.”

Trev laughed–ha!–and the next thing Micah knew he was being kissed. Morning-taste, and Trev was an aggressive kisser, pressing Micah back against the couch and climbing into his lap and that tongue, bigger than Micah had thought it would be. Not in a bad way. Never a bad way, he thought, as one hand slid down Trev’s side while the other pressed Trev harder into the kiss.

“You’re a good kisser,” Trev pronounced when they broke for breath.

Micah just panted, leaning forward and kissing Trev’s neck, his collar bone, his shoulder. Meanwhile Trev ground down against him through the flimsy sweatpants, oh god why were those even in the way? Micah struggled to get them off, managing it pretty quickly actually and then their cocks were together, beautifully, and both of them were moaning with it.

“More,” Trev said, demanding little fuck that he was. Micah reached between them and wrapped his hand around their combined cocks, rocking his hips a little.

The way that Trev looked with his head back and his mouth open and his back arched was beautiful. Worthy of wet dreams, if not of the orgasm that ripped through Micah like a fire through a pine forest.

“Nice,” was all Trev said, because Micah re-adjusted his grip then, wrapping his hand around Trev’s cock only with a decently hard grip, proving that he’d been a slut once too and knew how to do this as well as Trev did. Trev was quiet as he came, burying his face in Micah’s neck and digging his fingernails into Micah’s shoulders. The full-body shudder he gave was sixteen kinds of beautiful.

Micah decided to detail each kind, once they were in bed together. No classes on Sunday, after all. Trev didn’t do anything more than give an indignant squawk as Micah picked him up and carried him over the threshold and curled up in bed with him.

“Did you really mean it?” he asked, softly, half-afraid of the answer.

“Mean what?” Trev sounded far-off, dreamy.

Micah kissed his cheek. “The bit about at least one date.”

“Oh. Yeah. I’m not promising exclusivity or anything, but I’ll date you. If you want.”

Not quite excellent, but close enough for Micah. “Tomorrow night, then? Neither of us have early classes Tuesdays.”